What is the Penny Method? “Psychotic” dating technique explained as it goes viral

A new dating tactic has been shared on TikTok by lifestyle influencer Erika Tham, who claimed that the dating technique is used to gradually reduce the effort put into a relationship.

Feeling unlucky in love? Don’t worry, yet another brutal dating trend has gone viral which will leave you questioning whether you want to be in a relationship ever again.

A woman in Toronto claims she was told about this being used by straight men when they’re dating women.

Calling it “boy math“, TikTok user erikatham says one of her guy friends told her about “The Penny Method”.

She said her friend explained it’s similar to love-bombing. She said: “Imagine a girl is a piggy bank. In order to get her interested, obviously at first you have to be feeding her hundred dollar bills.

“But putting in hundred-dollar bills is a lot of work and you don’t always want to be doing that.

“So eventually you reduce it to 90. Now she’s going to feel the decrease in effort, but it’s only 10 percent so if she tries to bring it up, she’s gonna sound crazy at this point.”

Erika said the whole thing then gets “sick” as her friend told her the next step is to “bump it back up to 95”.

“Instead of feeling like she lost five – which is how she would feel if you went directly from 100 to 95 – suddenly she feels like she’s gained five.

“But you are still putting in five percent less effort. Basically, you just keep repeating this cycle and weening her off your effort until you get to the point where you’re giving her pennies and suddenly she’s excited to receive a nickel.”

The woman said the whole thing makes her ‘so afraid’ as she warned ladies to “be safe out there”.

TikTokers call Penny Method “psychotic” and “crazy”

Users commented on the viral video to call the ‘Penny Method’ ‘crazy’ as they said it’s ‘just psychotic to know and do’.

Another corrected it’s not ‘boy math’ but instead ‘psychopath math’.

One wrote: “Whatever happened to genuinely liking someone and wanting to spend time with them without games or lies?”

But others joked that people “definitely don’t think this much” as one man wrote: “It’s cute that y’all think we think.”

And some users revealed it’s not just straight men using it, as one wrote: “I’m a victim of the penny method but it was a girl that did it.”